


Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you

by asuralucier



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Don't Worry It Works Out In the End, Emotional Constipation, Getting Together, Injury, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Pre-Canon, Separation Anxiety, stoic pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22254790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: “Where were you? I looked for you.”In the dim light, John made out the shape of Marcus’s languid shadow. “I was right here, John. You don’t need me anymore.”
Relationships: Marcus/John Wick
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).



From his pocket, John produced a spare key to Marcus’s house and was relieved when it slid neatly into the lock without protest. If the key hadn’t worked, John would have found a way in regardless, but he would have preferred not to. He’d only used the key a handful of times in the past, and it was always in the back of his head, a _what if_. 

The hallway was dark, and John wondered if the man was asleep. Marcus was always complaining about noise from the street keeping him up. Still, John was reasonably certain that Marcus was in, having spotted his car in its usual spot around the curb. 

Somewhere, a soft, unmistakable click of a gun sounded. John had heard the same click hundreds, if not thousands of times. The sound was comforting, even if John was under no delusion that the muzzle of the gun Marcus was holding in his hand was aimed straight at his heart. It’d be a waste of time to aim anywhere else. 

“You hurt anywhere?” 

John examined himself in the dark the best he could. “No.” At least, he didn’t think so, if he was, he’d probably find out tomorrow, when his blood stopped singing. 

“Then what the hell are you doing in my house? That key was for _emergencies only_.” Marcus made an unimpressed sound somewhere nearby. A light flickered on, its click more gentle than the gun, somewhat. “Right, I’m going back to bed. You need anything, you get it yourself.” 

John looked towards the voice. “Where were you? I looked for you.” 

In the dim light, John made out the shape of Marcus’s languid shadow sat on a sofa. A gun was resting in the other man's grip, although it was no longer pointed at John’s chest. “I was right here, John. You don’t need me anymore.” 

“But -” 

“Or did I stutter, when I said it was time for you to fly the nest?” 

Come to think of it, Marcus did say that to John recently. But John liked to think he had an excuse anyhow. He hit back with, “You were drunk when you said it. I wasn’t sure if I should, you know, take you seriously.” 

“I’ve just said it again,” Marcus sighed through his teeth. “And I’m not drunk, now.” 

John liked to think of himself as a forward-looking kind of person. Most of the time, it was useful in his line of work to block out the white noise of it all, the details that didn’t need minding right away. As he stood in the middle of Marcus’s living room, feeling for once in his life that he wasn’t welcome there, John saw details to be minded later everywhere he looked. 

Finally, Marcus got up from his perch on the sofa and stood before him. And then put his hand on John’s shoulder and gripped, as if he was looking for any crack in John’s bones, any compromise in John's integrity. Once satisfied, he dropped his hand. 

“Get some sleep, okay?” 

“Here?” The word left him, carrying too much of John’s self with it; it was too late to swallow it back down. 

“Yeah, here,” Marcus said, nodding. “Let’s get you some clean sheets.” 

Then it was like nothing else had changed. John had been left naked and exposed to the elements on his own, but now he was back, folded safely and comfortably within the confines of Marcus’s teaching. 

Together, they made the bed up in Marcus’s spare bedroom, which had a bed and a freestanding dresser with some of John’s things. When he’d first offered John the space, Marcus had been practical enough about it: _so you’re gonna be here a while. Mi casa es su casa._

It'd made sense, then. And it’d been a while. 

“Your side’s not smooth on the left.” Marcus gestured. “I keep telling you.” 

The story went that Marcus once spent a stint at the Continental as part of Housekeeping. Of course, with everything else having to do with their world, nothing was ever so straightforward and maybe Marcus had obtained from that experience a little more than how to straighten the corners on a bedsheet. So far, John hadn’t yet had the pleasure, and he doubted that he would, now. 

“I never notice,” John admitted, but gave the offending corner a tug anyway. He waited for Marcus’s affirming nod before straightening up. But then John changed his mind and went down on the mattress face-first, but carefully, so that his shoes were dangling off the edge of the bed. 

“You should,” Marcus said, but there was no ire in it. “You should start to notice these things for yourself, John. Good night.” 

The next morning, John woke around eight, disoriented, possibly because he hurt somewhere that wasn’t his head. He also hurt somewhere else that wasn’t quite his body, but maybe it was better to put that aside. 

Slowly, he rolled out of bed, was gratified to see that there was no blood whatsoever on the sheets. Last night, John had been conscious that Marcus hadn’t been watching him, and had moved accordingly. It seemed like John was proving the man’s point and it definitely wasn’t a good feeling. 

Once John felt steady again, he went to the small washroom affixed to the spare room and splashed water on his face. After that, he changed and checked himself for bruises and cuts. He thought he found a couple, but nothing to fret over. Finally, John made the bed, smoothing a hand over the covers, mindful of Marcus’s critique from last night. 

Suddenly, a loud rap sounded on the door. “You alive in there?” 

“You know I am,” John responded. He opened the door to assure Marcus of that fact, and was struck by the fact that Marcus was actually wearing not a dressing gown, but a cleanly pressed shirt, trousers, cufflinks, the works. “What -” 

Marcus beat him to it. “What’s that?” 

John followed the heat of Marcus’s gaze to his arm, where there was an open cut, but it’d missed his vein by about an inch. He’d probably bled some in his clothes last night, but the important thing was Marcus’s bed was spared from John’s blood. 

“I didn’t get any on the bed.” 

“That’s not what I asked. Come on.” 

There were a veritable number of first aid kits placed strategically around Marcus’s house. The man’s logic was sound - you never knew when and where you might die. Might as well give yourself a fighting chance. John knew where the nearest one was, and he fetched it from under the spare bed and sat down cross-legged in the middle of the room. All without being asked.

“It’s just a scratch,” John said, because Marcus was probably used to some form of token resistance from him and he hardly wanted for things to change. “I’m _fine_.” 

“Yes, like you were fine in Minsk.” 

Marcus glanced at his watch and started working his cufflinks loose in order to roll up his sleeves. He got to work after that, carefully applying saline solution onto a piece of thick gauze and pressed it into the wound. 

“Are you ever going to let Minsk go?” John winced. 

“You almost lost a goddamn fucking leg,” Marcus scowled in turn. “Good thing one of us remembers.”

“So maybe I need you after all,” John said. He had meant to say it, of course, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he wished they’d come out better, that he’d taken more care with them. 

Marcus’s hands stuttered, but he didn’t say anything. 

Finally, John asked, “Going somewhere?” He couldn’t remember the last time that Marcus had looked so enterprising first thing in the morning.

“I have - had a meeting across town.” Marcus said, suddenly paying John’s wound too much mind; it was honestly, not an awful wound in the grand scheme of things, but that was neither here nor there. “I’ll probably have to reschedule. I meant to leave early. You know what traffic is like. But it’ll be fine. They’ll wait. The contract is closed.” 

“You could have just gone,” John said. “I know where everything is.” 

“No.” Marcus shook his head. “I couldn’t have.” 

By the fourth job he took alone, John thought he'd gotten the hang of it, just about. He might not have remembered Minsk as well as Marcus, but the hollowness at the back of his head, where Marcus’s scope used to be was profound. John couldn’t help but think of it, as if the pull was as natural and as present as the gravity underneath his feet. 

Without warning, a bullet shot by his head, and there was a horrifying gurgling sound that filled John’s ears. Like it was hardly anything, John shrugged the groping hand of a corpse off of him and shoved the sharp end of a knife down another man’s nearest orifice and drew out his larynx. It was like the bullet had dislodged something in John, and he was alive again.

It was almost as if Marcus had never left. 

“You should have told me you were around,” John said, dropping into a vacant chair at the table where Marcus was reading and enjoying some sort of -

John was only all too relieved to be falling back into old habits. He gestured. “Is that a salad?” 

Marcus snagged a handful of greens between his chopsticks. John couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen the man use chopsticks, but he supposed that there were a lot of things that he didn’t know about Marcus. “It’s Pad Pak Boong. Water spinach.” When this didn't alleviate John's expression, Marcus sighed, like he was opting for a new start, “...Hi, John. No, I couldn’t have told you. For one thing, we’re not even on the same contract. For all you know, I might have been sent to kill you. And I just missed.” 

“You don’t miss,” John said. “You wanted me to know you were there.” 

Finally, Marcus put down the book he was reading, and John relaxed enough to actually look at the cover. It looked like some sort of guidebook to local attractions. Now, that was something John knew about Marcus. A job wasn’t just a job; Marcus had strict on hours, and off hours, which was probably why he rode John so hard when they'd first started together. John had upset the balance that was Marcus’s life. A job away from home meant that Marcus procured a guidebook and worked his way meticulously through the city, until he knew it back to front and made it his own. If this was the last time Marcus ever saw a place, he wanted it to count. 

“Try some,” Marcus said. He handed over his chopsticks and John took them. John didn’t particularly want any Pad Pak whatever but that was familiar too, he missed that too, that Marcus would tell him to do something, and John would know it was for his own good even if his taste buds didn’t appreciate what Marcus wanted them to right away. 

“It’s.” John chewed slowly. “I don’t know. It’s green.” It was interesting, maybe, a spicy, garlicky tang that stuck on his tongue. Once John let go of a few things, he decided he could grow to like Pad Pak Boong. At the same time, John wasn’t about to give Marcus the satisfaction of being right, again. If Marcus didn't think a lesson took, he'd turn it over and over in his head; that way, maybe there'd be a space for John again.

Reliably, Marcus said, “Why the fuck do I try with you again?” 

Strictly speaking, Marcus didn’t have to, but John didn’t want to remind him. 

Later, Marcus said he was going to wander around a temple that would give him a stunning view of Chiang Mai from the top of Doi Suthep Hill. He didn’t invite John outright, but when John tagged along for something to do other than sit and think in his hotel suite, Marcus didn’t shoo him off either. 

The temple was full of vibrant color, other tourists, and monks. The steady warmth from the sun made John wish he wasn’t wearing black, but it wasn’t unbearable. 

“Maybe I’ll become a monk,” Marcus said, thinking out loud. 

“That’s crazy.” John held back a laugh. But maybe it was no less crazy than all the other things Marcus had said or done, or watched John do. There was the part of John that wanted to make a joke about Marcus being at home in whatever it was that monks wore because it looked adjacent to a dressing gown. But then he decided against it because he didn't want to get shot in the face. No doubt Marcus was still packing. John was too.

“Is it?” Marcus looked at him narrowly without moving his head. 

“It’d suit you, maybe.” John backtracked ever so slightly. “But it’d still be crazy.” 

Then two days later, Marcus vanished from Chiang Mai without telling John, and John didn’t get to see him for another long stretch. A week, a month, two months, six months. Marcus was forever after John to be more _aware_ , and now John thought he was.

Sometimes, John still used his spare key to get into Marcus’s house. It wasn’t a compulsion, like needing a stiff drink after a job. It was something deeper than that, something that cut through easy excuses and distractions. When John wanted something easy, the same weight settled near his balls. The spare bedroom was as John had last left it every time he bothered to check. Still, John wondered if an unknown interloper had taken his place in the time they'd both been gone.

After he completed this inspection, John would go into Marcus's bedroom and lie in his bed. Once in a while, he'd touch himself where Marcus slept. During these indulgences, John felt more aware, somehow, as if the height of his orgasms achieved new dimensions, simply because he thought about them more and put in the effort. He had no excuse now; he noticed things for himself. Though John liked to think he kept things neat, he was always careful to change the sheets afterwards. Just in case, as if Marcus had been watching him all along. 

Then, when John grew bored of feeding his own paranoia in an empty house, he started minding the little details that were meant for later. Details like buying a whetstone and making sure that Marcus’s set of knives, all stuck inside of a neat knife block, were kept sharp in the case of emergency. 

“I should have you arrested for breaking and entering.” 

John’s head snapped up attention, he nearly dropped the knife he had in his hand, but kept his grip on it, in the end. Marcus, along with a couple of suitcases stood at the archway of his kitchen, looking less than impressed. The man looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. 

John said, for the sake of argument, “It’s not breaking and entering if I have a key. Do you...want anything?”

Marcus looked ready to fight him on this, but then gave up. The job, whatever it was, seemed to have done a number on him. “Some coffee would be nice, yeah.” 

John made Marcus sit down, and then fetched him some coffee. 

“You hurt anywhere?” John peered at him carefully. 

“That’s my line,” said Marcus, a small hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth, and then it went away as he shifted. “Not too much. Mostly my pride." When he correctly read John's skepticism, Marcus added, "It’s fine, three-quarters of a million transferred in this morning. I’m well compensated for my humiliation.”

John remained on his feet, looking down at Marcus who now laid on his sofa with his feet dangling off the edge. He still had his shoes on and John bent to remove them. He felt better on his knees; that way, it was like nothing had changed between them. Compensations for jobs that John did on his own now made their way into his account without the usual deductions, but Marcus didn’t seem like the kind of guy to notice whether numbers grew a little fatter or thinner. The man always knew how to look at the bigger picture. 

“Seriously, John.” 

“What?” 

But maybe some other things had changed for the better. When he'd existed under the absolute protection of Marcus's proverbial wing, John would have never thought to touch the other man without his explicit permission. Now John could, as his own free agent, lay his chin down by the crook of Marcus’s elbow and wait. What's more, John knew this as a choice that he was making, as opposed to something he'd learned. While he couldn't put his finger on why exactly, the difference was important to John.

“Stop breaking into my fucking house. You'll make my neighbors nervous. They all think I’m this nice guy who looks after everybody’s allotments.” 

“You are a nice guy,” John said. He thought he was telling the truth. Marcus probably didn’t want to cop to the reality where he was a nice guy, but he was. 

“Shut up.” 

For a moment, John thought Marcus was reaching to flick him in between the eyes, but the hand just settled, heavy and profound, on the top of his head. “Maybe you should have brought backup, you know, for your job.” John raised his eyes but kept his head still. “This some kind of code? Do you want me start watering your vegetables?” 

“I want,” Marcus started, “I want you to stop breaking into my house. I mean it.” 

“Okay.” John nodded. “I won’t break into your house unless I’m half-dead. Unless it's an emergency.” 

Marcus didn’t look convinced or amused. 

For a very long time, they just looked at each other and eventually, Marcus’s hand slid off the top of John’s head to touch him elsewhere. Over his eyelids, the bridge of his nose, as if he was making sure that all of John was present and accounted for. It wasn’t as if John was the one who was so keen on leaving, but he kept that to himself. 

“What else do you want, Marcus?” John breathed. 

With the mug of half-full coffee still balanced on his chest, Marcus reached for John properly and kissed him under his jaw, as if he was trying to eulogize a bruise that had once lived there. Then Marcus moved to kiss John on his mouth, minding the stiff angle of his neck. 

“I've said that too, already,” Marcus pinched him smartly under his chin after they pulled apart, and the prick of pain went down south straight to John’s groin. “I want you to shut up.” 

John’s hands moved quickly to take full advantage of this new permission, for it was permission of a sort. He untucked Marcus’s shirt and dug his fingers into a fresh, slightly bluish mark that was just under Marcus’s kidney. He didn't press too hard, just hard enough to make sure Marcus was here too. Not to disappoint, Marcus made a sound John had never heard before into his mouth, but maybe he’d like to hear it again, and again. 

John could scarcely keep relief from flooding his voice, he said, “Okay then, make me.”


End file.
